The FBI and New Jersey investigators have collected employment documents and information allegedly provided to immigrants not authorized to work by supervisors at President Donald Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
Newark attorney Anibal Romero told the newspaper that he turned over fake permanent resident green cards and fraudulent Social Security numbers that he said were given to one of his clients by managers at the Trump National Golf Club. He also handed over pay stubs given to another client, Romero said.
Romero, who represents five immigrants he says were undocumented when they worked for Trump’s New Jersey club, said he met with two FBI agents and investigators from the New Jersey state attorney general’s office last month. The federal agents said they were going to “coordinate” with the state investigators, Romero said.
The New York Daily News reported Saturday that Romero turned over documents to state officials — but only discussed them with the FBI agents.
“I’m confident that federal and state authorities will conduct a complete and thorough investigation,” Romero told the News.
Both papers reported that Romero said one of the FBI agents told him on the phone that the agent had “received a referral” from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office about the attorney and the information he had.
Romero had earlier reached out to Mueller’s office but was told that the situation was outside of its jurisdiction, according to the News.
The policy of the state attorney’s office is not to confirm or deny the existence of an ongoing investigation. The FBI declined to comment.
Romero told the News and the North Jersey Record earlier this month that the attorney general’s office had also contacted him about reports by his clients of racially charged harassment and threats that the women were allegedly subjected to by their supervisors.
One of Romero’s clients, 45-year-old Guatemalan native Victorina Morales, went public in a New York Times interview early this month about her three years working at Trump’s New Jersey resort as an undocumented immigrant who cleaned Trump’s living quarters. Romero said Morales was provided with fake green cards and Social Security numbers by resort managers when she was working there illegally.
Morales told the Post on Saturday that she had come forward in part to highlight the “hypocrisy” of a president who rails against undocumented immigrants while they work at his club.
Morales said she entered the U.S. illegally in 1999 and began working at the Trump National Golf Club in 2013. She was told at the club that her working status “didn’t matter,” she recalled.
The Trump Organization said after Morales’ story was published in the Times that the company has “very strict hiring practices.”